De Blasio horse deal creates a new mess

The deal announced Sunday night by the de Blasio administration to limit carriage horses to Central Park was only the beginning of what’s likely to be a messy process for the mayor.

The problem is that while Mayor Bill de Blasio is claiming compromise, a key party to the deal — the unionized carriage drivers and stable owners — tell me that it’s not yet settled. They are intent on holding off a nonbinding agreement to cut roughly half the number of horses in the city until they are sure a promised stable in Central Park will really be built.

Story Continued Below

At the same time, the mayor also picked a fight with a new set of people: Central Park advocates who are about to lose public space to a private industry, and the pedicab drivers, thrown in at the last minute to placate the carriage drivers, who are now exiled north of 85th Street.

For a method of transportation that has been obsolete for a century, this is a complicated issue, involving, in no particular order rickshaws, Ringling Brothers Circus, real estate on the far West Side, Citizens United and Liam Neeson.

Let’s start with some recent history. After famously promising to ban horse drawn carriage entirely during his first week in office, de Blasio soon realized that his constituents cared about other things. Pre-k, police unrest and housing took up his time.

Though Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito also backed the ban, her rank-and-file members weren’t as interested. During a time of economic uncertainty, drivers could note they were among the vanishing middle-class unionized workers Democrats claim to champion. The Daily News launched an effective campaign, relentlessly hammering the mayor, while on the other side the advocates who helped get him elected needled him for failing to use his limited political capital to twist arms.

Last summer, de Blasio began to look for an out. He ordered private consultants to study the implications not just of a ban -- but of restricting horses to the park. (A spokesman for the city's Economic Development Corporation says studies have cost just under $200,000.)

By Thanksgiving, his aides were huddling privately with the drivers and the Council at the downtown offices of the drivers’ union lobbyist, Heather Beaudoin. In her funky-looking conference room, coffee was poured and numbers were thrown out: City Hall wanted 30 carriages (down from the current 68).

The Teamsters, of course, balked. They saw their cause not just as protecting jobs, but also preserving sanity in the face of “the crazies” in the animal rights movement, said driver and advocate Stephen Malone. In fact, about a year ago, Malone tried a joint campaign with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey -- no strangers to protests alleging animal cruelty.

“We were going to try to work together in some way,” Malone said. “Let’s tell our story.”

That ended when the circus did away with its famed elephant act.

So why did the Teamsters negotiate at all? After all, for months, the union claimed near-unshakeable support from the Council, all while de Blasio’s approval rating continued to drop.

“The mayor is the mayor, and he is going to be the mayor for some time now, and it never hurts to see what people have to say,” said Christina Hansen, a driver and industry advocate.

And what the mayor was now saying was he didn’t intend to ban the horses, but to essentially codify their industry with what’s shaping up to be a multimillion dollar stable. Another carrot for the drivers: all but doing away with the pesky pedicabs, whose aggressive jockeying for competing tourist fares sometimes left drivers with black eyes.

“We’re protecting our territory,” Malone said.

Though Malone’s name is on the press release announcing the deal, he and others are now adding a wrinkle: resistance to giving up the horses until they are sure lawsuits won’t scuttle the city-bought stable.

He sounds confident that his side got the best of the mayor.

“If I’m guessing he has a little bit of anger in himself that he couldn’t get it done,” Malone said of the Mayor’s intended ban.

Another player agrees about the result, if not the merits.

“After promising to ban horse-drawn carriages on day one of his administration, Mayor de Blasio just gave them a monopoly in the most tourist-rich sections of Central Park,” said Laramie Flick, a pedicab driver since 2004.

Pedicab leaders didn’t know they were caught up until it was too late, even though the industry, by sheer numbers, is several times bigger.

De Blasio was asked Monday about the pedicabs.

“Look, we’re obviously introducing a new element into Central Park with the horses, and I think it’s a good choice,” de Blasio said. “I think that’s where they belong – but we had to make an adjustment in terms of the pedicabs for balance, and I think it’s a fair outcome.”

So did this placate the animal rights community? Not entirely. NYCLASS, the group that pummeled Quinn and bankrolled de Blasio, said through a spokesman that they were waiting until the bill’s release to comment. Other advocates say de Blasio sold out.

“His silence allowed this false narrative to sweep over the city,” said Donny Moss, an advocate and filmmaker, referring to the Daily News campaign.

Moss notes that under this deal, horses will still compete with cars in Central Park and that drivers will be tempted to overwork the horses to make up for lost revenue.

Rounding out the complaints, he said targeting the pedicabs was “almost racist,” noting that many drivers are immigrants from Africa. (Moss later clarified that he believed this based upon the assessment of someone he had met, adding that pedicab drivers are being targeted because they lack the level of political clout as the horse carriage drivers.)

“These are working class people who are in far worse shape than the carriage drivers,” Moss said.

Of course, De Blasio sees it differently.

“Look, it’s not everything I wanted, I think I’ve been quite clear about that, but that’s why we have a democratic process,” he said.

Josh Robin is a political reporter and anchor at NY1.

NOTE: The original version of this article has been modified to include the parenthetical qualification from Moss. The original also estimated the cost of the city's studies at $450,000, before an EDC spokesman said the cost was lower.